I Know I Could Always Be Good
by tore-my-yellow-dress
Summary: In which Kalinda brings Alicia something out of Will's things, and it might be just what Alicia needs to get through the night. Set after A Material World.


There's a Somebody I'm Longing to See

/

Silver is glinting off everything and she doesn't know why she hasn't fallen asleep yet. Knows, somewhere in the back of her mind, that it must be because she slept so much yesterday, on and on, until her eyes burned to wake. Until her back ached, and the doorbell rang, and Finn was there with his pastel cast, and Peter came with his reckoning. And she's so tired, but she can't sleep anymore.

A part of her, a very selfish, quiet voice- wishes to fall asleep and never wake again.

She's never been one to think about death, mostly because Alicia Florrick doesn't believe in the after, but tonight and the night before that and the night before that and the night before _that, _it's rattled her. Skirted around the corners of her conscience. Made her ponder it, the edges of her chest aching and flaring like a raw wound. Maybe dying feels like falling asleep.

She remembers how he'd hold her.

It's impossible not to regret something so much, and it never leaves her. She knows that someday soon she will be well. She knows that one day it will all be okay, and she won't have this huge weight sitting on her windpipe, won't have daemons clawing down her back, leaving her thinking of all his blood. The casket was closed, and she didn't get to see him.

Alicia Florrick is devastatingly certain seeing him cold, seeing his mouth manufactured and sewn together- she's sure it would have killed her. She's sure it would have been too much.

Now, it's just waiting.

She doesn't know what she waiting for, doesn't know what kind of a game she's playing.

Closing her eyes and perching her fingers on the edge of her sheet. Pulling it above her head, in the moonlight streaming in through her bedroom window. White sheets and cast of the illumination. They were naked beneath white sheets, and now she's alone. She's alone, and she wants to be.

There's an honesty in pushing everyone away. Everyone isn't who she wants.

Everyone isn't who she needs.

And she needed him. She did.

They stayed up most nights, at Georgetown. So late their eyes would burn and the black ink of the casebooks would blur beneath their gazes. They'd sit close, hovering, waiting. Always waiting for the right moment, always trying to jockey for the right timing- and then she told him it wasn't personal. _It's personal, _she mouths to herself, clenching her eyes shut and balling the fabric of her bedspread into her trembling fists that shake like leaves. _It was personal because you mattered to me. I love you, Will. I love you so much. I love you, I love you, I love you. Come back. Please come back, and we'll have forever. I've made a mistake. You were everything. I love you. Please. Don't leave me like this. Please._

"Please," she whimpers, and then stops herself, because she's being ridiculous.

But she's not, because less than three years ago, he was in this bed. He touched this headboard. He kissed her mouth. He was here. It was real, and he was real, and she's so terrified of being well again.

She's so terrified of forgetting. She doesn't know if she wants to forget loving like that. Doesn't know if it's even possible, really. Alicia pulls the covers away from her face, and inhales, tremors. She's freezing, and she doesn't know how to get warm. He always kept her so warm, when they were lying together, and now it's waiting for something to fall out of the sky and hit her in the head to make her pass out.

She wants to go back in time. If not to Georgetown, because she still loves her kids to the moon and back, then to months ago. October. October would be the place to go, to fly away to. And if Grace's God is real, then he should be capable of providing her with the miracle of reliving, should give her the opportunity to tell herself, _stop. Stop. You don't mean it. You don't mean anything you say. You don't have time to say things you don't mean. You don't have time to make business decisions. You don't have time. _

_Will, _she mouths under her breath, talking to no one. _Will, we didn't have enough time._

They didn't have enough-

A rap falls across her apartment's entrance, and Alicia jumps in bed, startlingly alert. Reaches for her bedside lamp to brighten, and wobbles, the world spinning. She staggers from her bed, feet bare and frigid against the hardwood. If Zach and Grace wake up, there'll be issues, and she can't fathom who is here at half past one. Diane. Cary, maybe.

Her mother, to give her some kind of pep talk.

Owen, to hold her, even if it's not his embrace she wants.

Alicia doesn't bother to check through the peephole, opens and waits for a gun in the face. Maybe that's how 'God' will bless her. Maybe he'll end it all, send her on. It's not something she has the luxury of mentally joking about, and it's ironic that she has no cares to give. If it's Charles Mansen, bring on the heat, mother fu-

"Kalinda," Alicia whispers, eyes widening at the sight.

The younger woman tilts her head, dark hair spilling down her neck messily. Alicia thinks she's never seen Kalinda with her hair down. "Hey. Sorry it's so late. I just needed to-

She's also never seen Kalinda this flustered.

Then again, Kalinda has probably never seen her looking so morbidly tired. Dark circles and pale skin and rat's nest for hair. They've all gone to hell, not even the ones who actually died.

"Come in," she beckons, backtracking and thinking about trying to flip on at least the dimmest of lights, near the kitchen. Alicia pulls a hand up to her tangled curls, attempts to run a hand through them. It's a tearing sensation, one that makes her scalp tinge, burn. She's grateful.

"No," Kalinda murmurs. It's sharper than Alicia had expected, and she turns back for the door.

Kalinda is still standing there, arms dropped to her sides.

Something is in her hand.

"Kalinda, what is going on?" Alicia inquires, low. Cautious. She knows better, because this is Kalinda, and damn, maybe she did expect to have some kind of comfort. Maybe she was kidding herself to think Kalinda might be in the same predicament, the same shadow of grief. Maybe she was wrong.

Kalinda shifts, holds out whatever is in her hand. It's a bag. A plastic grocery bag.

Alicia reaches out and takes it, settles into the weight. It's too dark to see what's inside.

"Cryptic," Alicia tries to joke. It falls flat because of how distressed she sounds. She can't take much more. Not today. Not any day.

"I had to go through his things," Kalinda offers up, uncomfortable.

Alicia stops, halts in her own skin. The realization pricks across the back of her neck. "What is it?"

She doesn't feel like she's talking, like it's just her mouth moving, and her mind running.

"Something you should have. I have to go, Alicia." Kalinda sounds just as blank.

She turns, and leaves, and it's one in the morning, and Alicia is standing in her doorway like somebody has taken her insides and replaced them with something foreign. "Bye."

/

Alicia stubs her toe on the way back to her room, catches it on the couch. The nerve endings flare, fire shooting through her leg. It makes her heave, and by some miracle she manages to attempt to stifle the whimpers of pain with her hand. She clutches the plastic bag like a lifeline.

When she makes it back to her bedroom, to her bed, she doesn't turn on her bedside lamp, doesn't even bother. Falls back into the sheets and closes her eyes, tries to hold her breath for as long as she can. Until her face turns purple, until her lungs ache for the air.

Slowly, limbs suspended in the age, Alicia flicks on the light.

She opens the bag, and peers inside.

Finds a bag inside a bag, but the next is squeezed tight, is sealed and kept by some kind of air sealant, and-

The white, block letters stare up at her.

She's so used to crying by now that when the tears come, they merely fall down her cheeks. All silent, and thick, and blurring. She doesn't bother wiping them away.

Alicia tosses the useless, flimsy plastic to the side, off her bed, and then, like unveiling the secrets of time, unzips the Ziplock bag. Her fingers shake too much on the first two tries, but on the third she gets it completely open, and pushes that away, too.

She remembers him wearing it.

Alicia can remember wearing the sweatshirt, and she cries over it, pads of her hands feeling every fiber in the fabric. The navy blue, and he always loved her in their school colors. And he's gone. He's gone, and he's never going to wear this sweatshirt again. He's gone.

Here's the crux of the matter:

When people die, the people they leave behind do desperate things.

Alicia turns the lamp back off, and pulls the covers over her again.

She clutches the fabric to her chest, rocks with it. The sobs that wrack through her body are more the mourning of animals, are primal. It's quiet enough that Grace and Zach would just think it was the wind in the city. Will always hated it when she was weak.

Will. _Will._

She knows why Kalinda had it wrapped up so well, because when she brings it up to her face, when she inhales-

It still smells like him. Him, with his husky cologne. Him, with how he'd be just after he got out of the shower. The musk of getting back from the gym, and his hair would stick up in three different places. She once put her own hands in the sleeves of this sweatshirt. He'd keep her warm. He's still keeping her warm, and he's gone. He's gone.

He's gone, but it smells like him. This sweatshirt smells like him, and Alicia closes her eyes. She falls asleep, because this has to be enough.

It's all she has of him, anymore.

/


End file.
